Fall TV: Early fave?

I was perusing Ain’t It Cool News the other day, as I’m wont to do (BTW, I’m StarHawke over there, so say hi if you see me post), and saw this post containing previews for the 5 new fall shows over on CBS. I wasn’t that thrilled about 4 of them, but one of the three new dramas featured caught my eye: Person Of Interest. Very interesting pedigree on this one: J.J. Abrams, who can virtually do no wrong in my book since he gave Star Trek back to me two years ago, and one of the co-writers of the stunningly brilliant The Dark Knight, Jonathan Nolan. It feels like a mix of The Equalizer and Minority Report (or Early Edition), in that the central character is engaged in vigilante justice to protect an innocent but he has foreknowledge of the trouble that will ensue. Seems like a thin premise, but at the same time one well suited to the demands of episodic TV, with room to create the show’s mythology. Given that, I can’t think of two creative minds better suited for the project, ’cause Nolan knows from bad-ass vigilantes and J.J. can do some AWESOME mythology!

Still, this show and the four others mentioned in the AICN article are about 4 months from their premieres, and pretty much any show that has any appeal to me even this far off is pretty much already on the chopping block. I have what I think is an innovative idea to support SF/fantasy genre shows like this one, but again, it’s a little early to go there just yet.

Speaking of the four other shows, the dramas seem awfully one-note and the comedies pretty lame. A Gifted Man looks like someone decided to take ONE episode of Medium and draw it out into a series. If P.O.I.’s premise seems thin, this one’s positively anorexic. Unforgettable kinda reminds me of another bizarre police procedural of a few years ago, New Amsterdam, where instead of the central character having eidetic memory he was immortal and would be so until he met his one true love. It’s as if you took all the cool sword & sorcery stuff out of Highlander and made it a cop show. Yes, it was that boring, though a partial saving grace was the very appealing Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who went on to do a very interesting pilot for a show called Virtuality (which went nowhere, unfortunately) and now seems to be in Game of Thrones. Wow, see what you miss when you jettison premium cable?

Anyhow, despite the obvious charms of Poppy Montgomery (who looks absolutely smokin’ as a redhead), I say Unforgettable is forgotten shortly after November sweeps. Simular babe-itude exists in the comedy 2 Broke Girls in the person of Kat Dennings, who I loved in Thor and looks stunningly bodacious in the footage of this show. Sadly, she’s the only thing not flat and insipid in what they’re showing us. I have only so much time in my life for multi-camera live audience comedies and currently only Mike & Molly is funny enough to warrant watching. I don’t think the other new CBS comedy, How To Be A Gentleman, will rate that high either. Loved me some Kevin Dillon in Entourage, but as with Kat Dennings above, you’ve got one eagle held down by a turkey of a show. I hope both of these talented actors are released to better projects pronto.

And that’s it for at least the fall CBS schedule. Only one interesting show and the rest is just drek, so no major DVR programming there. The Good Wife, still the class of their lineup, got moved to Sundays, which is weird but no worries there. I guess I’ll still pick up the middling Hawaii Five-O and Blue Bloods, which are good to watch once but not much repeat viewing value in either case, and the aforementioned Mike & Molly is actually funny and worth my precious time. Oh, well. Shouldn’t watch too much TV anyway, right?